CLEVELAND, Ohio - In early October, Quicken Loans threw a party to celebrate a decade of doing business in Cleveland.

Employees brought their families downtown to see the online mortgage lender's new offices in the historic Higbee Building on Public Square. The Larry O'Brien NBA Championship Trophy made an appearance. So did members of the Cleveland Cavaliers' entertainment team.

But for some longtime Clevelanders, the space was the star of the show.

Grandparents started sharing stories about the Higbee Co. department store, a one-time retail destination that was the last holdout when major retailers processed out of downtown.

"Relatives were remembering, talking about it, emotional and crying," said Jeff Perry, who oversees Quicken's Cleveland office and the 450 or so people who work there.

Construction was under way from Higbee Co.'s new downtown Cleveland store in 1930, next to Terminal Tower.John P. Murphy Foundation/Tower City Archives, Forest City Realty Trust

The Higbee Co., with downtown retail roots dating back to 1860, opened its Public Square store in 1931. The store took the Dillard's name in the early 1990s and shut its doors on Dec. 31, 2001. Now Jack Cleveland Casino occupies the lower floors of the building. KeyCorp has offices upstairs.

Quicken, with 115,000 square feet, is sandwiched between them.

Nobody would confuse the new Quicken space, which opened in July, with an Art Deco retail showplace. But the Detroit-based business and its designers took an unorthodox approach to the $13 million renovation project, which transformed the entire fourth and half of the fifth floor. The offices are a dramatic aesthetic switch from Quicken's previous bold, brightly colored digs, which spanned 45,000 square feet at the old Post Office Plaza building on West Third Street.

The new space mixes modern touches with vintage finds, residential pieces with commercial furnishings and high-tech features with haute couture.

Yes, there are whiteboard walls, sit-to-stand desks, Herman Miller rolling chairs, tons of televisions and - a quirky Quicken staple - giant cutout photos of employees' faces mounted on their cubicles. That sea of desks is broken up, though, by partially stripped columns, plaster-clad up top and all exposed red terra cotta below.

Housewares filled the fifth floor of the Higbee Co. department store when it opened in 1931.Plain Dealer Historical Photographic Collection

During the Higbee store's heyday, display cases holding housewares wrapped some of those columns, concealing the bases. Designers at dPOP, a Quicken Loans sister company also based in Detroit, decided not to box them back up.

"When we first started space planning and looking at the office, we were like 'Whoa, what do we do?'" Dima Daimi, the lead dPOP designer on the project, said of the columns.

"We had over 30 meetings, going column by column through the space," she said. "It was to maintain as much of the plaster as possible, the cornice details."

In Quicken's central kitchen, where employees gather for lunch and informal meetings, designers opted to remove a 40-by-60-foot section of the fifth floor - six bays of concrete - to make the two-level office feel more unified.

Four crystal chandeliers from the original Higbee store dangle from the ceiling on long chains. The project team, which started working in November 2015, found the chandeliers in dust-covered crates upstairs. A Las Vegas company that specializes in lighting for casinos and hotels rewired and repaired the chandeliers and replaced missing crystals.

That same lighting company created a 152-piece, contemporary fixture that hangs over a grand staircase in the middle of Quicken's space, a few steps away from the chandeliers. At the top of that staircase, another section of the kitchen includes railings accented with brass pieces also unearthed from storage.

Daimi said it was a challenge to reference Higbee's past without creating something that felt imitative or fake.

The design team procured more than 1,500 pieces of furniture from close to 60 manufacturers. In the less-trafficked areas, including the lobby, they mixed in residential pieces from stores including Anthropologie, Restoration Hardware, Crate and Barrel and West Elm. Beneath the work spaces, they used alternating carpet patterns to create the appearance of scattered area rugs.

"It's not just creating a cool space," Daimi said. "It's also about creating a space that nurtures you."

The new Quicken Loans offices at the Higbee Building mark a dramatic aesthetic shift from the company's former Cleveland space, shown here in 2012, at the Post Office Plaza building on West Third Street. In this photo, Jeff Perry, who leads the Cleveland office, conducts a tour.Joshua Gunter/Plain Dealer file

Six gemstone-colored chandeliers made of mirrored acrylic hang over casual gathering spots among the cubicles. Coordinating lights, in ruby, amethyst, sapphire and emerald, wash the nearby columns and provide some sense of direction in the sprawling space.

The lobby, with original display cases from Higbee and opulent furniture, evokes a department-store waiting area or tearoom. But the interior hallways are the boldest throwback to the building's history. Those areas, with no source of natural light, have become a promenade that Daimi calls "fashion avenue."

The conference rooms that line one wall each have a theme. One is the barbershop. Another focuses on luggage. A third is dedicated to fragrance.

In the Miss Clevelander room, a custom display case holds a vintage hat, lingerie, a lace fan, a handbag, shoes, gloves and a period translation of medieval Persian poetry. Fashion ads cover the wall behind the case, and a hatbox sits on the floor. The backs of the conference chairs are orbs accented with velvety green upholstery.

Quicken was short on meeting space in its old offices, which were bursting at the seams with mortgage bankers. Gaining so many conference rooms, plus an in-house fitness center, a gaming area and other places for employees to study, stretch or blow off steam, helped collaboration, Perry said.

There's more energy in the office - something that's key in a call-center environment where the average workday might last nine to 10 hours.

"It's hard to really measure that on a spreadsheet," Perry said of the impact of the space on employees' enthusiasm and attitudes. "But it absolutely improves the quality of the work that people are doing. I think we're seeing people come up with more creative ideas."

He believes the new offices also have been a boon to Quicken's recruiting efforts. Last month, more existing employees referred friends, colleagues or professional contacts than ever before. There are enough desks at Higbee to accommodate 150 more workers, and Quicken has first right of refusal to lease the remainder of the fifth floor, if the company needs additional room.

Perry wouldn't put a timeline on hiring to fill that space.

"It's more about finding the right person," he said. "Someone who is very driven, incredibly curious, wants to get better, wants to improve every day and has a passion for connecting with people and helping clients."

Quicken opened its Cleveland office in 2006, bringing 50 people here from Detroit.

In August 2013, a company affiliated with Dan Gilbert, Quicken's founder and chairman, purchased the Higbee Building. Related companies now control much of the surrounding Tower City complex. The Post Office Plaza building, where Quicken leased space from Cleveland-based Forest City Realty Trust, Inc., is on the market.

Daimi said Quicken's offices in Detroit and other locations are all unique and colorful. But the department store stands alone. "This one's just different," she said, "because there's never going to be another Higbee building."